The News from Iraq (as Usual) is Bad

By Alan Caruba

In the 1960s and throughout the 1970s it seemed that all I read or heard every day was about Vietnam. It dominated the news as its forces took on the colonial French in an effort to liberate the nation. The effort was led by Ho Chi Minh, a man who would have been regarded as a patriot had he not been a communist.

Ho was determined to unite both northern and southern Vietnam and, if he had to fight the French and take on the United States, so be it. You could have asked just about every general in the Pentagon if getting involved in a war there was a good idea and the only one who would have thought so would have been Gen. William Westmoreland who was willing to fight until the last dead American. Going to war in Asia is always a bad idea.

The problem at the time was the “domino theory” that said that a loss of any nation in Southeast Asia meant all the others would go communist as well. The result was that the U.S. lost the war and it would be a long time before it regained its fighting spirit. By then, the Draft was history and we had an all-volunteer military.

Vietnam slipped from the news pages and we began to read a lot about Iran after our diplomats were taken hostage in 1979 during the course of what would be called the Islamic revolution there. Bordering Iran is Iraq and it was the satrapy of Saddam Hussein, the local dictator. Iraq sat atop a lot of oil that generated a lot of money, but Saddam wanted more. He invaded Iran to grab off some oil fields. At the time, the U.S. was his ally. The war became an eight-year stalemate.

We stopped being his ally when he invaded Kuwait in 1990. President George H.W. Bush put together a coalition that drove him out in 1991.Then came September 11, 2001 and this time it was George W. Bush in office. After driving the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, Bush43 and his neocons turned their attention to Saddam Hussein. Largely unmentioned in the war that followed was the very long border Iraq shares with the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, a presumptive ally. The rest, as they say, is history.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a great success militarily, but a total disaster from the point of view of having no plans and not enough troops to deal with the chaos that almost immediately followed. Typical of the Middle East, everything is about one’s tribal and/or religious affiliation. When you add in the vast oil revenues at stake, the Shiites were soon fighting the Sunnis and the Kurds were fighting anyone trying to take over their province. It was a classic SNAFU, everything was FUBAR.

Bush43 finally put enough troops into Iraq to assert control, but the politics of the place is like herding cats or sticking your hand into a basket of snakes. That’s why headlines such as the one in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, “Iraq Factions Spar Over Security Force”are, no pun intended, the writing on the wall.

I can’t think of many Americans who want to stay in Iraq as a military occupying force and you can include me. President Barack Hussein Obama made getting out of Iraq a 2008 campaign theme and we are, in 2011, getting out.

And that’s the problem. Without the U.S. as a stabilizing, balancing force, Iraq is just going to go to hell. Yes, they have had elections there and a parliament, but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is also running the ministries of defense, interior, and national security. Somewhere in Hell, Saddam Hussein is laughing…a lot.

For those who have not been paying attention, there is NO democracy in the Middle East; at least not the kind that doesn’t need an army and police to make sure the people don’t get restive.

When they do, as in the case of Egypt, the current dictator is deposed or in Libya he is chased, found, and then shot in the head. In Tunisia the dictator was forced to flee, while in places like the Sudan and Yemen, chaos reigns. In Syria, the dictator is busy killing protesters in the streets.

The odds that Iraq will devolve either into a dictatorship or break apart in some fashion or be run as a puppet state of Iran are very good.

The odds that we and/or the Israelis are going to turn parts of Iran into giant craters are also very good.

Sometimes you fight a war and discover the effort was a huge waste of money, men, and time. Curiously, they always seem to be a good idea at the time.

Tags: Arabia, Bush41, Bush43, East, Iran, Iraq, Middle, Military, Saudi, US, More…Vietnam, War, oil

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Comment by SgtGrumpy on November 10, 2011 at 6:26pm: A muslim democracy..LOL!

Comment by Scott Casteel on November 10, 2011 at 12:34pm: @ R.R. The reason Suddam was'nt taken out silently along with his administration is because there was no money to be made with a quick and easy plan. Warfare generates a LOT of revenue for the manufacturers of war materials and the shipping industry. Just ask LBJ's family how much they made off of the Vietnam Conflict. The further away the conflict, the more bucks to be made.

Comment by Scott Casteel on November 10, 2011 at 12:26pm: I support Ron Paul and his ideals. Just not for president. I'm behind Cain and dig his spirit. Just not for president. Lets get these movers and shakers behind an electable candidate that understands D.C. politics. I love the theories, like- abolish the IRS as we know it, less Federal Govt., etc. But come on...That aint hapn'n any time soon. The House nor the Senate is going to give up power without a fight. A long drawn out fight that must be fought by an insider that wont back down. Then, in 15 or 20 years of constant battle with the GOP, we'll begin to see some monumental changes. But only if we stay united and continue to hold their feet to the fire. Change isnt going to happen over night thru the power of the vote. Everyone wants immediate change, but that cant happen short of a revolution. And that'd be bad for our country and everyone in it.

Comment by Pat Chadwell on November 10, 2011 at 12:05pm: Dave the problem is that the Arabs have been giving our gov kickbacks to keep us from doing our own oil until the MB take over an then they will sell the oil like they have been doing in arab countrys for years.. That why we do not have any industries anymore because the gov is shutting down our energys...

Comment by Dave Newbry on November 10, 2011 at 11:30am: We have our own oil, lots of it under our own soil. More than the arabs have, and cheaper to get, if the morons in government would allow us to get it. We don't need to be sending our sons and daughters off to defend countries that don't like us and don't appreciate our efforts to let their people live with the freedoms our rapidly disappearing constitution allows us. We need those soldiers defending our own borders, and looking after the best interests of our county instead of enabling cheap dictators to continue blackmailing us with expensive oil. As a Vietnam Vet myself, I understand completely where you're coming from, Alan.

Comment by MUG on November 10, 2011 at 10:22am: "The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions." - Robert Lynd

Alan, we both served during the Vietnam War. In spite of SNAFU and FUBAR we both also know the American soldier was not defeated. The American public lost their will to continue, the anti-war movement influenced politicians, and our Government surrendered and pulled out our military and allowed the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. We know now that at the time we announced we were pulling out, Ho Chi Minh was preparing to surrender and seek a truce.

I suspect you are right, history will repeat itself when we pull out of Iraq.

Comment by Jim Pryor on November 10, 2011 at 10:13am: Iraq, is like "Ali Babba and the 40 Thiefs".. Who can steal the most ???? All crooks !!!!!!

Comment by LandisRogers on November 10, 2011 at 10:01am: While we have the greatest military in the world, they are being handicapped by some of the most gutless politicians in the world! The last war we won decisively was WWII and it was by inflicting mortal damage and destruction on our enemies, including a lot of civilian casualties of that era (think Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Also, we didn't grant the hold-outs ( "werewolves") in Germany the abilitiy to destabalize the peace. Instead of granting them U. S. Constitutional rights, complete with attorney privileges, we either killed them then and there or took them before a Military Tribunal and then executed them. Until we elect leaders with "backbone" we will never be able to finish successfully any war. We winch in horror at the thought of our troops taking pictures of nude terrorists at Abu Ghraibe as "torture". Are you kidding me? What about our folks being murdered in the World Trade/Pentagon attacks as well as those who were beheaded in the middle east?

Comment by David G. Lund on November 10, 2011 at 8:22am: Alan:

Depressing, but well-said and truthful. After 10 years of fighting against those that we originally sought to "liberate", we find that the Iraqi and Afghani peoples ARE NOT ABLE TO FUNCTION DEMOCRATICALLY and desire to be left to their own devices and tribal customs. That is their right and fate and we have done our level best to help them. It is now time for us to bring our armies home to help us here!

We The People believe that our returning heroes can be instrumental in rebuilding our own declining nation. In fact, their being withdrawn from Iraq could be a "blessing in disguise" if our government recognizes the potential of their return and does not bring them home just as part of a "re-election ploy"! We The People fear, however, that the "regime-in-charge" (like the Iraqis and Afghanis) cannot escape its DNA-induced behavior and will fail to use wisdom in the troops' return and release. We believe (actually "know") that these heroes will be returned to a "nation of no jobs and little opportunity", forced to languish in unemployment while collecting compensation from our rapidly-shrinking, entitlement-strapped "pool of collected taxes"!

We The People believe that a far better plan MUST BE enacted! Consider the following: (1) Bring the troops home. (2) Keep them employed. (3) Deploy them along the entire Mexican border, intact with all of their equipment (drones included). (4) Relieve Border Patrol and Homeland Security to be used in major cities to track down and register all undocumented aliens. (5) Establish work camps for non-violent aliens who have the desire to become citizens. Use these workers to build a proper barrier at the border. Offer citizenship classes after-hours. (6) Incarcerate all violent aliens into prison camps, using them as an additional, under-guard labor force for building the barrier. (6) Allow aliens with jobs to register for "green cards" and require them to "check-in" with an assigned U.S. Immigration agent each month. (7) Deduct expenses for the armies, equipment, building materials, camps' maintenance and workers' board, room and pay from the billions of dollars given to Mexico each year. (8) While building the wall and using our armies as security, open new energy fields that can hire G.I.'s as they are discharged!

We The People believe that a proactive plan of this nature MUST BE utilized; but we also understand that its execution will have to wait for the seating of a NEW ADMINISTRATION! Let us elect in 2012 true statesmen and leave the politicians out of it!

David G. Lund whendowethepeoplecount.com

Comment by Colin Malaker on November 10, 2011 at 8:20am: I have to agree with Ron Paul on this one. I think we high tail it out of there, support the Israelis from afar with weapons, etc, have a real important sit down with Russia, China and India in regards to what our actions will be when all hell breaks loose there, because it will, and then let the region sort it out ... meaning nuclear chaos and an even more barren wasteland for the next several centuries. The civilized world must protect itself from the evil of radical religious ruling.